


You Cut Me Out In Little Stars (And Place Me In The Sky)

by auroreanrave



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Music, M/M, Music, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7760917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following their tumultuous breakup, Niall finds himself reconnecting with someone he thought he'd lost a long time ago. Music ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Cut Me Out In Little Stars (And Place Me In The Sky)

**Author's Note:**

> So, obviously *none of this is actually real*, and even in the fictional 1D!verse, this is a complete canon divergence in some respects, given that I started writing this immediately following the hiatus earlier this year. None of the people mentioned in this fic are associated with it in any sense
> 
> The music, outside of Zayn's 'Mind of Mine' and vague references to One Direction, is fictional, although one song borrows inspiration and title, if nothing else, from Kate Havnevik's 'Kaleidoscope' which soundtracked the writing of the fic. 'Kaleidoscope' also lends the opening lyric to the title of this fic. None of the music mentioned exists and is associated with anyone mentioned in the fic.
> 
> Technical details aside, I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I did bringing it together over a couple of months.

* * *

 

 

Act two of their story begins a little something like this.

 

* * *

 

 

Niall will remember a night like this in retrospect, the flickering edges of a well-worn, well-loved memory. They'd been on tour in Antwerp, buzzed off life and a lack of sleep and too many indulgences.

Zayn had sat between Niall's legs while they shared gummy bears, more naked than not, and Niall had pressed a kiss to the side of Zayn's throat like a brand.

"This is good, right?"

Zayn had paused, fingers swiping through gummies the colours of a burnt sunrise to find a pink one. "Course."

He'd tilted his head back to feed a kiss to Niall, and then a rose and strawberry flavoured treat, and Niall had been happy in that instant.

It had made the breakdown all the worse.

 

* * *

 

 

It recommences - as if it had all been frozen, on hiatus - with a text message. Niall is back in Ireland in the spring, almost a year after, and dealing with the serious debate over Rice Krispies versus Cocoa Pops. He has song lyrics in his head, a couple of songs done and dusted in the studio.

The message reads, _hi its me._

He doesn't do anything, for a while. He puts his phone on the arm of his chair and eats his cereal. Niall can't respond to it, not after everything.

He responds after he pours a second bowl, and after he's texted his ma about something trivial. _hi._

_sorry i didn't text earlier._

_why are you texting?_

_i wanted to hear your voice._

_you're not hearing my voice tho_

_i figured this was better than nothing. you woulda hung up the phone on me._

The retort bubbles up in Niall's throat, and Niall has to swallow it down.

_maybe. u good?_

_yeah. kinda. you?_

_alright._ Then, because the wound is still tender, he adds, _how's the high life treating you?_

_don't. i'm sorry._

"Fucker," Niall says out loud. He can hear the sound of the breeze outside through the open windows, and the chiming of the clock he inherited from some great uncle or something, and yet it feels too loud, too oppressive. Niall wants to peel his skin off. His skin feels like it's on fire and cold at the same time.

_Z_ ayn's next text is waiting for him: _i'm gonna be in dublin in two weeks. meet for a drink?_

Niall doesn't know what to do. He waits for his mind to do something, to push him towards the right answer. Then, he lets his fingers do the thinking.

s _ure. why not._

 

* * *

 

They arrange to meet in a quiet pub in Dublin. It's raining, has been all day, and it's a balm to Niall's frazzled nerves. Zayn was once his shadow, as much a part of him as his left hand, and it feels foreign and strange to be worried about how he looks in front of him.

Zayn arrives in a flurry of dripping rain, the silver-tinged hair peeking out from beneath the beanie soaked. Niall watches him rub himself dry and peer around, before he notices Niall at the table in the corner.

"Nialler," he says, and his smile cracks his face wide.

"Hi," Niall replies. He rises from his seat as Zayn approaches, and Zayn tugs him into a hug that Niall reciprocates a second too late.

"Good to see you," Zayn says, once he's settled down at the table, a glass of orange juice at his elbow. "Can't believe we left it this long."

"Yeah," Niall manages.

"So..." Zayn pauses, sighs. "I'm sorry. I know I should have given you guys more time. Let you know how I was feeling. I just... I needed to break out of it."

"It?"

"The whole... circus of it. I'm not ashamed of what I was, but it wasn't... it wasn't always me. It was a distraction."

"And me? Was I a distraction?"

Zayn frowns, and blinks up at Niall. "Course not. Never. I wanted to tell you more than anything, but - "

"But you were too busy being a fucking creative and all. Aye, I got that," Niall spits out. "You coulda at least texted me before. Let me know one way or another. You realise what it's like? Having your best friend walk out and then see him on the arm of some supermodel?"

"No, and I'm sorry. Really. I fucked up, completely. That's why... that's why I couldn't text you. Alright?"

"Not leaving though."

"No," Zayn nods. "I can't regret that. I just regret how I did it."

Niall knows all about Gigi, of course; her and Zayn's whirlwind romance following the "Pillowtalk" video, their Mets gala appearance, on each other's arm at the Grammys. Niall doesn't hate her; he can't hate someone who he'd never met, even if his weaker moments he thinks her hair's not that shiny, her face not that perfect.

He also knows about their split-up. The rumours, the passive-aggressive tweets, Gigi's Instagram captions alluding to the single life. He'd be a fool to lie about it.

"Well," Niall says, finally, once he's drained the remaining half of his pint of ale. "At least your album's pretty decent."

"You listened?" Zayn asks, his smile luminous. "Did you like it?"

"Don't go be getting big in your britches," says Niall. "It was good, but you're hardly the likes of Val Doonican now."

Zayn laughs and beams, and Niall can't help but smile too, and it's a step towards normal that he never expected.

 

* * *

 

 

They keep up their conversations after Zayn has returned to England. Niall contemplates heading over there, but he's intent on guarding his time off during One Direction's current break. He needs to recharge a little, if nothing else. The whirlwind is dying a little.

He and Zayn send texts about movies and TV and cooking and music, music, music. Niall sends Zayn the guitar beat of a song he'd started composing, and Zayn sends back a wall of heart-eyes emojis. The text: w _here's the rest of it_? has him replying, _You tell me._

The next morning, Niall wakes up to a song file from Zayn's email address, and it's Zayn's vocals pouring over the beat. He sings in his lower register, a warm, gravelly tone that's like caramel in his ears. It's... beautiful. Raw. The lyrics are about connection, about beauty, about attraction.

"Did you like it?" Zayn asks over Skype the same day. He looks tired and blurry through the webcam, laid on his bed and shoulders bare.

"I loved it," says Niall. "I... don't know what to say. But I definitely loved it."

"Good," Zayn says, smiling. His hair is now a tinted turquoise. Niall has been sending him BuzzFeed articles about his hair change ("Zayn Just Dyed His Hair And Now He's The Answer To Our Merman Dreams" is Niall's personal favourite) the past week. "I want you to sing it with me."

"With you?" Niall asks.

"Come to LA. Just for a bit. I want to see you again. In person, I mean." Zayn indicates the camera.

Niall thinks about it. He has eight songs in the can. He's caught between releasing a fresh EP with a lead single, or maybe building up some of the others he has in progress until they're great enough to make up a full album. If he's serious about this solo career stuff, even if it's just for hiatus work, he should probably stay and work.

"Sure," he finds himself saying instead. "Why not?"

 

* * *

 

 

He arrives in Los Angeles, and is met with the flash of paparazzi bulbs. A car is waiting for him at the gate, and he finds Zayn inside.

"Sorry," Zayn apologises. "They're worse over here than back home."

"No worries," Niall says, placing his carry-on on the floor of the car. Zayn wraps an arm around his shoulder and soon they're talking about the usual stuff.

Zayn's LA home is expansive and quiet, high in northern California and close to Hollywood. Niall immediately demands to use the pool, and bombs straight in. Zayn sits on the side, a beer dangling from his fingers. "You'll like it here," Zayn insists. Niall thinks he might just agree.

They stay in that night for dinner, and Niall tours Zayn's house. They curl up with gourmet pizza and kebabs (Niall finds it fascinating that the Americans call it shawarma), and play Mario Kart. Niall takes a selfie of him and Zayn on the couch, blurry and black and white and beautiful.

"'m so glad you're here, Nialler," Zayn murmurs a few hours later, when they're both sleepy and lazy, letting a true crime documentary play out on the TV. "Seriously. I need you here."

"'m glad I'm here too," Niall says, and imagines the kiss falling onto the crown of his head as he falls asleep in the crook of Zayn's arm.

 

* * *

 

 

The studio sessions go well. Zayn is on track for album number two, with plenty of evolving themes. "Mind of Mine" was good, great even in parts, and the producers want to get some 'next-level shit' going on.

Niall has never thought that he would count as 'next level'.

He feels horribly out of place when Zayn brings him to a session. Everyone there is focused and comfortable with one another, in-jokes fluttering like bass notes in the air.

"So what's I hear about you having something good, blondie?" The producer asks Niall.

Niall might not know the in-jokes, but he can talk music with anybody. "It's a demo. I started with some guitar beats, Zayn added vocals to it, and since then it's... I don't know. Become something."

The producer shrugs. "Your dime, Malik." He loads up the demo and listens through to it once, his expression not changing all the way through.

Finally, he peels his earphones away and nods. "Not bad. Definitely needs some work, but not bad, blondie. You need both vocals on there, though. Steadies the song. Anchors it."

Zayn looks up at Niall. "You mind?"

"Course not," Niall grins. "I'll try not to show you up." Zayn beams at him.

In the booth, their vocals blend together perfectly over the beat, and it sounds great. Better than ever, in fact, now that they've had the chance to perform it together live. By the end, the key change kicks in, and the song soars.

Zayn throws Niall into a hug, and it feels electric and wonderful once again.

Behind them, the producer claps his hands a couple of times. "Not bad," he announces, over the speakers, "but could be better. I'll do production, you two work on vocals."

That night, they do just that. They have the studio to themselves, and they're just working on harmonies, sat on the floor of the booth. Niall has wine in a mug and Zayn is sprawled out across the floor when he says, "Kaleidoscope."

"Hmm?"

"The song. I know it doesn't have a name yet, but I was thinking about the song and the hook and then this song came on Spotify and it just... came to me."

"Kaleidoscope," says Niall, tasting and rolling the word around his mouth. "Good. I like it. We can fix the chorus so it's in there too."

Zayn grins and then leans up and forward and kisses Niall. It's brief and sweet and there's only a flash of tongue before Zayn leans back.

"Did I just fuck everything up?" Zayn asks, eyes wide.

"No," Niall says, and he leans forward and kisses him back, because as much as he's hated Zayn this past year, he's loved him more, and this is good.

 

* * *

 

 

They spend weeks working on more music. Not just "Kaleidoscope" but other songs; "Fruit" has a sparkling, folk-pop vibe, while "Private Party" is sultry R&B. They build enough songs for three EPs at least. When they're not making music, they're fucking in every room of Zayn's enormous home, wrecking themselves on each other. Re-learning one another.

"I want us to share the song," Zayn says, one night. They're in bed, Zayn on his stomach so he can trace a pattern with his long fingers, in the skin of Niall's stomach. Both ache comfortably. "You can have it on yours, I can have it on mine."

"And the other songs?"

"Maybe an EP? Maybe something else?"

"Like a couples album," Niall grins. "You wanna be the Cher to my Sonny?"

Zayn smacks Niall's stomach lightly with the back of his hand. "Joke's on you, I have better hair."

That leads to a pillow fight, which leads to more distracting activities, and by the time they're finished, Niall is putting copies of the demos of the songs into a folder on his laptop called 'Zayn and Niall EP Project'.

 

* * *

 

 

Their relationship gets outed, because of course it does, by an enthusiastic paparazzo who spies the pair of them on Zayn's veranda. They're both half-dressed, thank God, but Zayn is in Niall's lap, and they're kissing, and there's nothing contextual about that to spin out to the media. The images appear on TMZ the evening of the day they're taken.

"Shit," says Niall.

"Fuck," Zayn adds, lamely. "I should sue 'em."

"He was probably at a safe distance," Niall sighs. "We just got sloppy."

"Now what?"

"What you mean?"

"Our managements will want to minimise the damage. They'll want us to separate. Take time off," Zayn says, and he sounds morose.

"We don't... we don't have to do anything we don't want to do," Niall says, and the old wound resurfaces with a sour, mean vengeance. He can see this playing out the way this did before. A break up, a separation, the something soft and sweet inside him being trampled. "I'm happy. I don't mind being honest with people."

"I don't know," admits Zayn. Niall pauses and rises from Zayn's bed, before he can say or do something he regrets.

"I'm gonna go sleep in the spare room. 'Night." He's out of the room in his pajamas before Zayn can protest, because he can't let the choking sobs out in Zayn's presence, he just... can't.

He hasn't slept in the room since he and Zayn kissed in the studio that night weeks ago, and it feels too cold and small without him. He dreams of swimming to an island dotted with green, and imagines Zayn pressing a kiss to the brow of his head as he sleeps.

The next morning, Zayn is gone - an interview with KISS FM - leaving a note, asking Niall to meet him there. Niall thinks about it, spends a lot of time eating his cereal, and then makes his way to the station, thanks to the driver Zayn's already arranged for him.

Inside the studio, he's directed to outside the booth, a wall of curved glass separating him from the actual radio studio, where Zayn sits with the hosts, smiling and laughing.

"So," the lead host is saying, "when can we expect the new record?"

"Maybe a little longer than expected," Zayn admits. "I've been experimenting with a couple of new sounds and collaborators."

"Is this Niall Horan? Your ex-bandmate?" The co-host asks, her hair a blonde curtain that shines under the studio lights. "He's just arrived at the studio. Hi, Niall."

Niall gives a quick wave.

"Yeah, we've got a few songs between us, One of them is... is really good," Zayn smiles. "Really, really good."

"Is that all you've got between you?" The lead host asks. "Sorry, I've gotta ask after yesterday's photos."

Zayn pauses, and Niall's heart catches in his chest. The ground sways beneath his feet.

Finally, Zayn speaks. "I've been doing a lot of exploring with this record. Changing what I thought I knew. About the world, about myself. I'm... I'm incredibly lucky to have found someone who makes me happy. Makes me better. And I love him. i don't care a lot that he's a guy, and so neither should anyone else."

Zayn looks up through his lashes at Niall, and Niall has never loved him more. His smile is radiant, and Niall matches it. Beside him, an intern with a glorious afro wipes her eyes.

"Wow," the host says, sounding a little bit choked up, "that was really sweet, guys. Niall, anything to say to that?"

Niall is beckoned into the studio, the external mic turned on, and all he can say is, "Come here, you silly bugger." He welcomes Zayn into his arms and kisses him, once and softly and sweetly, resting his forehead against Zayn's.

"Did you just - ?" Niall asks, because it's too much and not enough at once, and Zayn is there, cradling Niall's face with his hands.

"I'm not ashamed. I shouldn't have been the first time around. I'm sorry. I love you." His kiss touches Niall's brow, and Niall welcomes the new world they've just created.

The intern with the afro, Keisha Bannion, takes the photograph that 'breaks the Internet' for a couple of hours: Zayn and Niall, through the studio glass, grinning at each other, their heads pressed together, like no one else matters.

 

* * *

 

 

"Zayn and Niall From One Direction Are Now A Couple And We Cannot Handle It!" screams BuzzFeed.

"Niall Horan and Zayn Malik spotted in Los Angeles following surprise relationship announcement," declares the Daily Mail.

"Ha! Good one, lads. *winky emoji* *kiss emoji* #bringonthestagdo" says the tweet from Harry Styles, @Harry_Styles, on Twitter. It is retweeted by @Real_Liam_Payne and @Louis_Tomlinson accordingly.

Niall tweets out the selfie he took of him and Zayn months ago, on the evening of the KIIS FM interview, monochrome and amazing, and adds the caption, 'For the record, I love him too. xxx'. Zayn retweets it instantly, adding a couple of heart emojis. It becomes the fifteenth most retweeted tweet of all time within twenty four hours.

 

* * *

 

 

"Kaleidoscope" hits No. 1 on the Billboard US Hot 100 and the UK Official Charts at the same time. The EP, "The ZN Project", listing eight songs (including "Kaleidoscope") nestles neatly in the Top Ten Albums chart for both sides of the Atlantic, and doesn't leave for a solid nineteen weeks. The cover is their faces, faded in across one another like overlapping ghosts. It circulates Twitter and Tumblr a record amount.

The video for "Kaleidoscope" is filmed in Cancun, Mexico the same week the song is released, with Hannah Lux Davis at the helm. It largely consists of gorgeously filmed scenic and cinematic shots, as well as a setpiece involving a dissolving prison. Niall and Zayn sing into camera, facing each other, as the prison collapses around them. The final chorus, the soaring key change, has them singing face to face as the surf of the beach crashes around them, gazing at one another.

Afterwards, they suck each other off in their hotel room, and laugh at it all, especially when Harry, Liam, and Louis retweet the shooting pictures and Zayn gets a text from Louis asking where their tickets were.

 

* * *

 

 

Zayn likes Niall's home in Ireland more than he likes his own in LA, even though he keeps it on. They start to spend more time there when they can, their own projects and shared projects overlapping and linking together. Niall is finishing up his debut, and Zayn is weeks away from letting the lead single from album two hit the airwaves.

Right now, though, Zayn's mind is on something else. They've got dinner ready, mostly, Niall double checking the recipe a handful of times from the battered cookbook in the kitchen. Zayn is straightening out the lounge and internally trying not to panic. The scent of beef stew calms him down a touch, but not enough.

"Hey." He looks up as Niall curls his arms around Zayn's waist. "They're our best friends. You'll be fine."

"Yeah." Zayn raises one of Niall's hands. Kisses it. "Yeah."

He's caught between a light purple panic, the colour of a bruise, rising in his chest, and a growing, bone-deep certainty that he knows that everything will be alright. He wants to drag Niall away to bed, to rooted comfort and the immeasurable, immovable love he carries inside him every day, but doesn't.

"They're here." Niall's looking out of the window, and with his sun-bright grin, Niall leads Zayn down towards the front door where three sets of individual knocks sound out, and they open the door out and into the sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick author's note: Hannah Lux Davis is a real person and her music videos are amazing (she did Ariana Grande's 'Into You', Hailee Steinfeld's 'Love Myself', and Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj's 'Bang Bang' which are both A-plus pop bangers and have great, slick videos). She didn't have anything to do with this fic; same applies with KIIS FM and all affiliates.


End file.
